Absurdities in Sports

So Madden 011 comes out in two months. One of the new features is a player statistic called "Old Spice Swagger." Now, advertising in games is fine, as long as it doesn't go too far. Put advertisements up in the digital stadium - that's fine. That's realistic. Have them change each month, that's even better.

But.

What Madden 010 did, was they put a little pop up window on the bottom left corner of the screen, actually covering the game clock at times, and it was the same advertisement for an entire game. So before every offensive snap, we had to see an advertisement for tires.. or McDonalds.. Absurd. And to think, on top of having to see advertisements, I also paid $60 for this game.

Now, in Madden 011, I can only assume the pop-up will be back, but now there's also a stat called "Old Spice Swagger." Wonderful.

Backbreaker may be lacking a lot of features that are standard in the Madden games, but at least Backbreaker isn't shoving ads down our throats.

http://kotaku.com/5574934/maddens-newest-stat-swagger-is-sponsored


My second piece, completely unrelated, is about the UFL.

The UFL cannot do basic math. And this isn't just a typo, this is someone who cannot do basic math.

If you saw 1+1 = 2, 2+2 = 4, 3+3 = 5, 4+4 = 8.. you could assume that "3+3 = 5" was a typo. On the UFL's website? Not so much...

http://www.ufl-football.com/

Just scroll down a bit to the 2009 season standings. I've copied them here:

Team W L T Pct PF PA

Tuskers 6 0 0 .857 200 112
Locomotives 4 2 0 .714 187 117
Redwoods 2 4 0 .333 105 134
Sentinels 0 6 0 .000 56 185

The Tuskers went 6-0, with a winning percentage of .857
The Locomotives went 4-2, with a winning percentage of .714
The Redwoods went 2-4, with a winning percentage of .333 (correct)
The Sentinals sucked and went 0-6, with a winning percentage of (surprisingly) .000

I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but isn't 6-0, 1.000...? And you can't say that these scores were not updated at the end of the season, because I can only assume the Tuskers couldn't have gone from 4-1 to 6-0..

So we've got the Locomotives.. they're at .714, they should be at .666.

The bottom two are correct, which leads me to believe the person doing these stats was high.

Indians new style of play

I loved what I watched from the Indians yesterday. Especially from the 7th inning on, they demonstrated a new style of play that we never saw in 7 years with Eric Wedge.

Acta made a defensive substitution in the 7th (LaPorta was on base, and he pinch ran Marte, a better defensive 1st baseman) that came back to help Chris Perez save the game. Marte made an awesome stop on a hard hit ball with a man on base in the 9th inning.

Earlier in the 9th inning, Choo stole 2 bases and the Indians were able to secure an insurance run that probably made Perez breathe easier in his first closing attempt of the year. In the 8th inning, Acta wisely left Laffey in to get one left handed batter out, then brought Smith in to face the two righties to follow.

Most of this stuff we never saw from Wedge. Smart and aggressive base running, pitching match-ups that work, and a defensive substitution near the end of a close game. The young players will respond to this kind of intelligent managing.

I'm not saying the Indians will win the world series; but that was really nice to see yesterday.

Please watch the video below...I love those Old Spice commercials.

Old Spice